


Run

by ClockworkDinosaur



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (hopefully), Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, POV Second Person, Shipping is not the focus, the disciple is a badass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 18:09:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10972626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkDinosaur/pseuds/ClockworkDinosaur
Summary: we've lost so much, so many of those we love are deadhow do i get these memories out of my fucking head?





	Run

**Author's Note:**

> i was having major ancestor feels a few nights ago and whipped this up while listening to "One Foot In Front Of The Other" by [Emilie Autumn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMfGpxFIILU)
> 
> unfortunately i've kinda forgotten 90% of what happened to the ancestors so if this has timeline issues please forgive me

You can feel it, the moment his blood-pusher stops pumping. The blood, so bright red against dark gray skin, still flows. The scent of hot metal and burnt blood and charred skin reaches you at your vantage point at the back of the shouting crowd among the shadows. Your ears are still ringing, that shocking final word still echoing through your head but you barely comprehend it.

He's gone. He's gone he's gone _he's gone-_

Then a cry, a pointed finger, and an accusing glare in deep blue eyes are all directed at you. You're surrounded by angry and victorious trolls, trolls loyal to The Condess and high on bloodshed. Rough hands tug at your arms and your hair and your clothes and you fight back on impulse. Your claws lash out, cutting through thick skin and splattering you with a spectrum of color.

It doesn't matter. You're forced to the front of the crowd and thrown to your knees with your arms pinned behind your back in a way that makes your shoulders burn.

Your pain is quickly replaced with cold fear as a pair of fuchsia high heels stop in front of you. Slowly, as if confronting a dangerous animal, you lift your head to see a wide fang-filled smile. Gold and pink eyes stare you down, pinning you in place and that smile only grows wider, pulling her lips over her gums almost grotesquely. Even the troll holding you still shudders with her proximity but you won't give her the pleasure.

You have nothing to lose. You bare your own teeth, hissing vehemently at Her Imperious Condesation herself.

The death blow you're expecting doesn't come. Instead she laughs, a high and grating sound that echoes across the now-silent crowd. She leans close, bending low to get as close as possible. Her clammy breath reeks of fish and you barely manage not to gag as she laughs softly in your face.

“Little catfish, you ain't worth my time,” she purrs, dragging a sharp claw over your scarred cheek in a gesture that would have seemed gentle if it weren't for the sharp sting and the blood you feel trickling down your face. “Your little revolution was useless. Completely glubbin' _useless._ You didn't achieve nofin' and you and all your irrelevant lowblood friends are dead or worse. I want you to remember that.”

She stands to her full height, sneering down her nose at you. “Fuck her up, seahorse,” The Condess says shortly to the burly indigo-blooded troll by the execution stand.

The same troll who's arrows now protruded from The Signless's strung-up corpse.

The indigo-blood bows low, the tips of his strange horns nearly scraping the ground. The Condess takes her seat again at top of an elaborate and opulent dais, her golden throne shining in the light of the moon. You tear your eyes away from the empress and watch as the indigo-blood knocks an arrow. A low growl rolls in your throat, a useless display of aggression only made more ineffective by the olive tears that begin spilling from your eyes.

The revolution was going to die. You are all that's left, everything Signless died for, everything you and Dolorosa and Psiionic and all the others fought for, all of it was to end on the point of an arrowhead.

You stare down your executioner.

From behind dark rectangular classes, he stares back.

The arrow waits, the bowstring taught in his hands and his aim impeccably trained over your blood-pusher.

Silence. Even the crowd behind you is still. Your blood rushes through your ears, reminding you you're alive _you're alive and you need to fight you need to FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE-_

A single word shatters the silence.

“Run.”

Within the same breath, the indigo-blood turns his arrow to the troll behind you and with an almost musical twang the arrow flies, straight and true into the eye of your captor. The hands that held your arms behind your back were suddenly gone and you bolt before someone could react to the sudden change of heart from the executioner.

You don't even hazard a glance backwards as chaos begins a beat later. Footsteps trail you but you're faster, faster than any troll on Alternia thanks to sweeps and sweeps of running and you outpace them effortlessly.

There were hundreds of safehives, set up by Signless and Dolorosa sweeps ago in case they needed to hide. Though the Empress and her drones had found many and eradicated their inhabitants, there were some so rarely used that few involved in the resistance remembered their existence.

You don't think about those initiates; the ones lucky enough to die, and the unlucky ones captured and tortured until the revolutionary base's location was extracted from their brainpans, leaving nothing else but the desire to die. You don't think about the mustard-blooded initiate who stumbled, zombie-like, into the center of the base with dozens of drones on their heels.

You absolutely do not think about the fact that the last word Signless said to you, as chaos erupted and your allies and friends fell around you, was _run._

The familiar forest welcomes you, the leaves muffling your already quiet footsteps as you head towards one of those forgotten safehives.

And then what?

It's over.

The thought stops you in your tracks and you stumble to a halt. Everything you worked for, fought for, bled and cried over... All of it was done. For a moment you wonder whether it would have been better for you to stay, to be ripped apart by the crowd. At the very least you could have taken some of them down with you.

With feet like lead, you take another step. You remember Dolorosa, nurturing and kind. Her smile that lit up any room. Her gentle hands that could tear a troll to shreds if needed.

And another step. Psiionic, sarcastic and witty. Loyal to a fault. Smarter than any troll you have ever talked to and will ever talk to in your lifetime.

And another. Signless. His heart as strong as the irons that bound him in death. Able to weave words that incited emotion, that incited thought, that incited revolution. You pitied him and loathed him in equal, fierce measure.

Until you're running again, the faces of the fallen revolutionaries flashing through your mind and tears are streaming down your face. It hurts, everything hurts but there is no way you're quitting now.

Your executioner has given you a second chance and there is no way you're going to waste it.

The revolution will live.

 


End file.
